Historic image of the Little Rock
Nine and Daisy Bates (top row, second from right) posed in her
living room Historic image courtesy of the Library of Congress, part of the Visual Materials from the NAACP Records, cph 3c19154

Daisy Bates (1914-1999),
civil rights advocate

The Daisy Bates House, a National Historic Landmark, was the de
facto command post for the Central High School
desegregation crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was the first time
a President used federal powers to uphold and implement a federal court
decision regarding school desegregation. Mrs. Daisy Lee Gaston Bates,
who, with her husband Lucius Christopher (L.C.) Bates, resided at this
address during the Central High School desegregation crisis in 1957-1958.
The house served as a haven for the nine African-American students who
desegregated the school and a place to plan the best way to achieve
their goals.

As the president of the Arkansas state conference of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) branches, Daisy Bates
symbolized the legal fight to desegregate the public schools after the
U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
that found segregated schools unconstitutional. Mrs. Bates combined
her public roles as the state NAACP president and co-publisher (with
her husband) of the Arkansas State Press to become a mentor to
the nine teenagers (now known as the Little Rock Nine) who ultimately
desegregated Central High School. During the desegregation crisis, the
Bates' home became the official pick-up and drop-off site for the Little
Rock Nine's trips to and from Central High School each school day, and
consequently, a gathering spot for the Nine and members of the press.
As such, the house became a frequent target of violence and damage at
the hands of segregation's supporters. The perseverance of Mrs. Bates
and the Little Rock Nine during these turbulent years sent a strong
message throughout the South that desegregation worked and the tradition
of racial segregation under "Jim Crow" would no longer be tolerated
in the United States of America.

The Daisy Bates House is located at 1207 West 28th St., in Little
Rock, Arkansas. It is private property and is not open to the public.